Belarus

Belarus's Dances

Belarus

Lyavonikha — Belarus's best-loved folk dance: couples stamp, gallop and spin to a merry song about Lyavon and his wife.

Kryzhachok — A fast ornamental couple dance named after the wild drake (kryzhak) or the cross (kryzh) its dancers form.

Bulba — A comic stage dance that mimes the potato's whole year, created by Igor Moiseyev in the late 1930s on a Belarusian folk song.

Myatselitsa (Metelitsa) — The whirling 'snowstorm' dance — in 1852 the first Belarusian folk dance performed in a theatre.

Lyanok — A work dance that tells how flax is sown, pulled, beaten, spun and woven into linen.

Polka-Yanka — The best-known Belarusian polka: hop, stamp and spin around the circle to the song 'Yanka'.

Karahod (Khorovod) — Ancient singing round dances of spring, Kupalle and harvest — including the UNESCO-listed Yuraŭski Karahod.

Kalyady & the Kalyady Tsars — Midwinter carolling with a dancing goat, and the UNESCO-listed Tsars' play of Semezhava.

Belarusian Ballet — Classical ballet at Minsk's Bolshoi Theatre, from the first national ballet Salavei (1939) to Elizariev's Spartacus.